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A sun temple (or solar temple) is a building used for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, dedicated to the sun or a solar deity. Such temples were built by a number different cultures and are distributed across the world including in India, China, Egypt, Japan and Peru. Some of the temples are in ruins, undergoing excavation, preservation or restoration and a few are listed as World Heritage Sites individually or as part of a larger site, such as Konark.
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China
The Temple of the Sun in Beijing, China, was built in 1530 during the Ming dynasty by the Jiajing Emperor, together with new temples dedicated to the Earth and the Moon, and an expansion of the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of the Sun was used by the imperial court for elaborate acts of worship involving fasting, prayers, dancing and animal sacrifices, as part of a year-long cycle of ceremonies involving all the temples. An important element was the colour red, which was associated with the Sun, including red utensils for food and wine offerings, and red clothes for the emperor to wear during the ceremonies. The temple is now part of a public park.
Egypt
There were a number of Egyptian sun temples, such as the Great Temple of Ramses at Abu Simbel and complexes built by the Fifth Dynasty, of which only two examples survive, that of Userkaf and of Niuserre. The Fifth Dynasty temples usually had three components, a main temple building at a higher elevation, accessed by a causeway, from a much smaller entrance building. In 2006, archaeologists found ruins underneath a market in Cairo, which could possibly be the largest temple built by Ramesses II.
India
The sun temples of India were dedicated to the Hindu deity Surya, with the most prominent being the Konark Sun Temple (also known as the Black Pagoda), at Konark in Odisha. Konark was constructed around 1250 AD, by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga Dynasty, and was built in the shape of a large chariot with carved stone wheels, pillars and walls. Other sun temples in South Asia include:
Others
There are also sun temple sites in a number of other countries: